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How do you think will be the future VNs?


Soul Hunter

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Things tend to evolve through the years, with new technology, new taste of the public etc, there are some aspects of VNs today that are better than the first ones made at the 80s(I just saw some CGs in VNDB), how do you think they will evolve?

And how different will be the average future VN than the current average VN? Today I see a lot of high school students, will the future be different? 

I make a parallel with the movie industry, which is much older and the difference between today's movies and 1910's movies is brutal.

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Makes sense, the chinese are the majority of the public right? Well, aside from this, I really hope in the future VNs will be much better than nowadays in some aspects, with better engines, better sprites, I don't know, VNs are becoming more and more popular.

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I think there's a catch when it goes to expecting VNs to progress on a technical level... 2D art does not scale to technological capabilities the same way 3d graphics do, and VNs are way past the era of technical limitations of computers/consoles being the thing keeping them down in any way (unlike visual media that struggled with those for many decades). You say better sprites... But what can you do to make them better outside of working your artists to the ground? More animation? Upscaling by neural networks? These will always be controversial, to say the least. Better engines, but how much can you really streamline stuff with meaningful gains when 2D art and text are still two core elements of the experience? As long as VNs are the medium they are, there are pretty hard limits to how they can evolve when it goes to form. I mean, remember that VR JVN Sekai Project helped to crowdfund and localize? It was different... But kind of pointless, because VN formula at its core has little use for such gimmicks.

When it goes to tropes, story quality and generally getting closer to their full potential... Hard to say. Eroge scene is extremely stale right now. EVNs are in a particularly non-lucrative corner of the already-struggling indie market and are growing rather slowly. I'll have to see real change before I believe in it... But also, my near-infinite backlog and similarily gargantuan Steam wishlist suggest that we're getting enough cool things to read even as it is. :P

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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I think there's a catch when it goes to expecting VNs to progress on a technical level... 2D art does not scale to technological capabilities the same way 3d graphics do

Yeah man I understand what you mean and I already thought about that, but look anime for example, you might think that they are almost the same of the 90s, but I don't think this is the case, there are minor improvements like shades, light and such, and now the more extreme cases, for example Ufotable animes, they improved considerably in the visual department with F/SN, and other studios are trying to catch up like A1 Pictures with SAO Alicization, so I think there will be more similar animes in the future.

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Upscaling by neural networks? These will always be controversial, to say the least.

Why controversial? Sorry I didn't understand.

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EVNs are in a particularly non-lucrative corner of the already-struggling indie market and are growing rather slowly.

Seriously? Dammit, then we won't see any major improvements any time soon, more profit means more demand from the public, and more demand calls for more investment, if demand doesn't grow then VNs stall, I know it's Japan and companies there tend to be zombies that don't make any profit, but still.

 

Edited by Soul Hunter
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1 hour ago, Soul Hunter said:

Why controversial? Sorry I didn't understand.

As I see it, the value of 2D art is to a large degree connected to the style and talent of its authors, usually with one person or very few people responsible for art direction. But making high-resolution art is extremely labour-intensive and thus expensive. You can try to circumvent that using computer upscaling techniques, neural networks having most potential in this regard, but the question is what are you loosing by processing art in this regard and how much people are willing to look past. At this point (or in near future) you could probably create decent character sprites from scratch using neural networks, only leaving more complex/custom stuff to real artists... But I don't think many people would like that, including the artists themselves. :>

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At this point (or in near future) you could probably create decent character sprites from scratch using neural networks, only leaving more complex/custom stuff to real artists... But I don't think many people would like that, including the artists themselves.

Awesome, if this happens then VNs will become cheaper and quick to produce, CGs take tons of months to make so artists using better tools will be able to make anything in seconds :D 

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15 minutes ago, Soul Hunter said:

Awesome, if this happens then VNs will become cheaper and quick to produce, CGs take tons of months to make so artists using better tools will be able to make anything in seconds :D 

I can actually imagine that... Like:

1. Neural network learns from thousands/tens of thousands of pieces of VN artwork.

2. Neural network generates character sprites according to a small set of characteristics.

3. Artists create poses and CG storyboards for the neural network to fill with the aforementioned character templates.

4. All artists outside the one making storyboards get fired because who needs them at this point.

5. People lament about the death of art.

6. Profit.

Yay, future! :nico:

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5. People lament about the death of art.

No man, this is the birth of a new kind of art, it might substitute the old, it might coexist, we don't know, thing is that we have a lot to gain, people didn't complain about not needing to draw at stone with the invention of paper in the past so keep your head up and hope for the best.

And as I said, I think this will more likely to be a tool for artists rather than completely replacing them(so 1 artist in the future will be able to do what 10 do today), but if it happens to replace them then it's just things evolving, doesn't bother me.

Edited by Soul Hunter
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from a writing standpoint

about vanilla eroge: it's gonna depend on how many people get inspired by Rance 10 and Musicus, if nothing happens and writers keep flocking to moege then it's best to lose all hope.

about console-only: probably the same as last decade, meaning pretty good but won't set the world on fire.

about otome,bl and yuri: with how much the writing on them improved in the last decade, will probably be the best alternative that we can get.

about OELVNs: hopefully keep getting more ambitious to the point of reaching their prime in the next 10 years.

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1 hour ago, Soul Hunter said:

No man, this is the birth of a new kind of art, it might substitute the old, it might coexist, we don't know, thing is that we have a lot to gain, people didn't complain about not needing to draw at stone with the invention of paper in the past so keep your head up and hope for the best.

And as I said, I think this will more likely to be a tool for artists rather than completely replacing them(so 1 artist in the future will be able to do what 10 do today), but if it happens to replace them then it's just things evolving, doesn't bother me.

do you seriously think it's better for a market to have 10 artists unemployed? Nobody would want to work in this market where nobody gets chances to work lol And no matter how well technology evolves, a person cannot be replaced. You can take the shitty machine translations as an example.

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do you seriously think it's better for a market to have 10 artists unemployed? Nobody would want to work in this market where nobody gets chances to work lol And no matter how well technology evolves, a person cannot be replaced. You can take the shitty machine translations as an example.

Sigh, let me rephrase then, 1 artist will be able to do in 1 second what he does in 10 hours today ;) 

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1 hour ago, Silvz said:

and be paid less, since he's not needed anymore

Welp, it seems that you learned what evolution means. For better or for worse, further improvements in technology ( by all means ) will pretty much overcome all kind of works ( automatizing them or just making easier so less people will be required ). Anyway, after reading all that, it's quite reasonable believing that new kind of systems will let producers to work faster in various diferent ways. :P

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On 7/18/2020 at 4:55 AM, joshopit said:

correct me if Im wrong, but I think that it took 10 years to develop wonderful everyday.!

That's a very weird claim because while its technically not incorrect, its not exactly correct either. Wonderful Everyday (Suba Hibi) didn't take 10 years of continued consistent development. What happened is that its creator Sca-ji created a VN called Tsui no Sora in 1999 but it was clear that it was an unpolished mess with a lot of good ideas and potential. He worked on multiple VNs in between in that time and focused much of his effort on those. However, at some point he did decide to rewrite Tsui no Sora into a new polished up VN which became Suba Hibi. So yes, technically speaking you could say the first draft of Suba Hibi came out in 1999 and its final draft came out in 2010. But its not like he was focusing on it as his priority for 10 years. Rather it just seems like a project he took up because he was disappointed with Tsui no Sora and he wanted to rework it into something better. Specifically what I'm saying is that Suba Hibi didn't take 10 years of dedicated development, but rather it was project that Sca-ji based off of a previous work he already made that he wanted to improve upon. 

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4 hours ago, joshopit said:

yeah,I forgot to mention that.

Anyway,what i wanted to say is that it takes time,money and a team to do a nice work and I think that in the future,we'll pull out masterpieces. Im currently writing my VN and I swear to God that I want to pull out a nice product,it's frustrating that developers here don't understand that the community hate amateurish graphic and projects. I don't care if it'll take years but i want to pull out something that is good, a lot of AM and EU developers should understand that :D

Have a nice day man :D

Totally agree with you. Best of luck with your project, friend !

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16 hours ago, joshopit said:

what i wanted to say is that it takes time,money and a team to do a nice work and I think that in the future,we'll pull out masterpieces. Im currently writing my VN and I swear to God that I want to pull out a nice product,it's frustrating that developers here don't understand that the community hate amateurish graphic and projects. I don't care if it'll take years but i want to pull out something that is good, a lot of AM and EU developers should understand that :D

Have a nice day man :D

Certainly I agree that good visual novels take time to make. Good luck on your own project btw :)

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I see increasing movement towards mobile (especially free-to-play) and Steam.  Chinese-language releases have great potential short-term, but long-term the opportunities for non-Chinese companies may dry up due to increased government oversight and the exit of Valve from China.  Mobile will bring a focus on sporadic gameplay and de-emphasis on narrative.  Developers aiming to release on Steam will shift away from school settings, and ero content will likely be designed to be modular and non-essential to the story so it can be easily removed.  Steam releases will bring an increasing focus on interactivity, gameplay, and animation.  The Japanese market remains saturated, and small and mid-sized developers will continue to fail amid stagnating or tightening market conditions; much of the growth and adaptation will be powered by English developers.  Crowdfunding on Kickstarter and Patreon will continue to be a key driver of growth and innovation in the English market.

Edited by sanahtlig
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